transaction all the same,' he said as he leaned back in his
chair.

'It's the commonest thing in the world,' said Lopez picking up
the bill in a leisurely way, folding it and putting it into his
pocket-book. 'Have our names never been together on a bit of
paper before?'

'When we both had something to make by it.'

'You've nothing to make and nothing to lose by this. Good day
and many thanks,--though I don't think so much of the affair as
you seem to do.' Then Ferdinand Lopez took his departure, and
Sexty Parker was left alone in bewilderment.

'By George,--that's queer,' he said to himself. 'Who'd have
thought of Lopez being hard up for a few hundred pounds? But it
must be all right. He wouldn't have come in that fashion, if it
hadn't been all right. I oughtn't to have done it though! A man
ought never to do that kind of thing,--never,--never!' And Mr
Sextus Parker was much discontented with himself, so that when he
got home that evening to the wife of his bosom and his little
family at Ponders End, he by no means made himself agreeable to
them. For that sum of 750 pounds sat upon his bosom as he ate
his supper, and lay upon his chest as he slept,--like a
nightmare.



CHAPTER 2